


An Act of Remembrance

by lha



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Armistice Day, Embedded Images, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Music, Mystery, Remembrance Day, Whatsapp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-23 19:01:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16624649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lha/pseuds/lha
Summary: Now that John was once again a blogger first and a doctor second, he spent a disproportionate amount of his time on social media.It's Monday 12th November and John Watson stumbles on something that he wants to share.





	An Act of Remembrance

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit on an experiment but built on an idea that came to me while I was singing in a concert this weekend.

Now that John was once again a blogger first and a doctor second, he spent a disproportionate amount of his time on social media. This morning he’d taken Rosie to her nursery class at the place that Sherlock had declared best suited for her future social and educational development (even if it was unreasonably inconvenient to get to) and then set himself up in the corner of a favourite coffee shop. 

It was the 12th of November and there was still a wealth of posts about Armistice Day and the acts of remembrance that had taken place all across the country. They’d taken their own moment, Sherlock quietly and seriously explaining to Rosie why it was important to be quiet and they’d mostly succeeded. John suspected that before meeting him, Sherlock wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone why the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month was significant, but they’d all grown and changed since then. The act of remembering was no less important to John than it had been before Sherlock, but it was more poignant than painful now.

Given the significance of the anniversary, one-hundred years since the end of the First World War, there had been a number of special events. John had watched footage of artists drawing images in the sand of beaches across the country, only for them to get washed away with the coming of the tide. His feed was full of shared pictures of installations in graveyards, poppy murals and recordings of community plays. He scrolled through a lot of them, until something caught his eye and he stopped. 

The video was called _We Will Remember Them, St Pancras Station, London 11/11/2018_ and the image showed a grand piano, lighter wood than most he’d seen, sitting in the middle of the main hall of a train station he knew well. Putting in his headphones, John clicked play, not at all sure what he was about to see. The camera moved, as though whoever was holding it was simply recording the admittedly beautiful architecture, before it passed over a tall figure in an old style uniform and with a kit bag slung over his shoulder. That first glimpse was almost quick enough to miss but the camera panned back just in time to catch the man lean his bag against one of the legs of the piano and seat himself on the stool. From the angle of the camera John couldn’t see much more than his back, cap and an arm but after a moment the soldier stretched his fingers and placed them on the keys.

John wouldn’t consider himself a classical music buff, or even that much of a fan, but there was something incredibly compelling about the piece the other man began to play. He watched, as seemingly organically a crowd began to form around the piano and before long, other people in period dress began to emerge. Over the next twenty five minutes, John watched as children in shorts, pinafores and pigtails ran in and out of the crowd playing a game lost in time. As intimate scenes of love, loss and reunion all played out in the space around the instrument as the soldier continued to play. Sometimes the movements were clearly choreographed, occasionally there would be a cry or shout and behind it all there was the noise of working train station.

There was a moment of stillness when the soldier stopped playing however, pervasive somehow despite the bustle. And then, as though nothing had happened at all, he reached down for the strap of his kit bag and putting it back over his shoulder he walked purposefully away from the camera and in the direction of the platforms. The video ended and only the impending auto-start of whatever was next on the list, stirred John to select stop. He checked the detail box beneath the window, to find only information about the piano piece ( _Maurice Ravel - "Le tombeau de Couperin"_ written between 1914 and 1917 and with each movement dedicated to the memory of a friend who died during World War I) but nothing else about the event, the memorial itself.

Still, John took a deep draft of his cold tea and reached for his phone, this was something he wanted to share.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a fabulous recording of the [Ravel](https://youtu.be/1Mgw8pV4iPM)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and I hope that you enjoyed! Given that this was an 'unusual' piece I'd particularly love to hear your thoughts here or on twitter @LHA_again
> 
> Lx


End file.
